Gov. Kathy Hochul displayed her trademark spinelessness Thursday as she announced measures to handcuff the duly elected mayor of New York.
She won’t boot Eric Adams from office, but instead will “merely” move to put him on a short leash — and undermine him when necessary.
Every New Yorker should oppose this idiocy.
Progressives wanted her to give Hizzoner the boot, for fear he might help President Trump deport violent illegal-migrant criminals.
City Comptroller Brad Lander would ludicrously invoke an obscure City Charter provision allowing for an “Inability Committee” to oust the mayor.
Hochul wisely rejected that. No New York governor has ever removed Gotham’s mayor, let alone on such blatantly political and flimsy grounds.
Yet her cut-the-baby-in-half solution isn’t much better: She’ll erect “guardrails” to ensure that Adams does what progressives want, as opposed to the voters who elected him.
She’d create a new inspector general to interfere with City Hall’s every move, and set up a fund (at taxpayer expense) to let the city comptroller, public advocate and City Council speaker sue the feds.
Let’s get this straight.
Democrats argue that Mayor Adams is a puppet of the Trump administration because of the deal struck with the Justice Department, a charge Adams denies.
Their solution is make him of a puppet of far-left Albany.
How absurd.
This isn’t all about Adams. With Andrew Cuomo the frontrunner to be the next mayor, Hochul has an eye on controlling him, too.
The governor paints this as necessary to restore “stability” in the city, yet the main instability comes from the blood-in-the-water drive to remove Adams.
And his cooperation with Team Trump aligns with what most New Yorkers want: A whopping 80% back deporting violent criminal migrants, a recent Siena poll found.
Hochul could end the “instability” just by telling progressives to pound sand.
Let voters decide Adams’ fate at the polls in just a few months, rather than tie his hands.
